By Pariah s. Burke
InDepth: Liquid Layout
Liquid LayoutAn adaptive layout solution for designers who don’t want to be re-designers
Any time a feature is added to InDesign or any mission-critical tool, Adobe is always keen
to tell us what that new feature is. Many InDesign experts then rush to tell us how to use
that feature through articles, videos, blog posts, presentations, and so on. But in this article
I’m going to go one further and tell you the answers to the questions than we all need to
ask before we wonder how to use a new feature: (okay, actually it’s several) What can the
feature do for us? Will it impact our work positively or negatively and to what degree in
either direction? What will it save us—or cost us—in terms of productivity? Does it solve
a need you and I actually have—or will have in the foreseeable future—or is it just some-
thing cool (or not) that sounds like we might want to use but probably never will??
The new feature under that scrutiny
today is Liquid Layout in InDesign CS6.
And in this article I’ll tell you how to use
it, but first, here are the answers to those
other questions I mentioned. Liquid
Layout will help us. It will make our work
easier. It will impact our work positively
(by lessening it). It will cost a little bit of
up-front learning time for a long-term
payoff (like with styles). And yes, if you are
planning any multi-output publishing, it
will solve a need you actually have.
I N D E S I G N M A G A Z I N E 47 April | May 2012 18
Figure 1: The results of a Liquid Layout conversion from portrait (left) to landscape (right)
InDepth: Liquid Layout
What is liquid layout?Liquid Layout is a way to automatically or
semi-automatically adapt page content and
objects from one page size or orientation
to another. It’s an alternative to using the
hit-or-miss Layout Adjustment feature that
has long been a part of InDesign; in fact, it’s
intended as a direct replacement for
Layout Adjustment (though Layout
Adjustment is still available in CS6).
So what can liquid layout do for
you? Short answer: It can save you
hours or even days of reworking the
same content into different layouts,
page sizes, and orientations. It can
do everything Layout Adjustment
can, but with a lot less manual
cleanup… and only a little more
prep work.
OK, that was the short answer.
Want more details? Still need to be
convinced? have a look at Figure 1.
I started with the page on the left, and
Liquid Layout gave me the page on the
right after I resized from the original iPad
portrait-orientation (768x1024 px) to land-
scape (1024x768 px). I didn’t do any manual
repositioning or resizing; I didn’t even
manually change the text frame from
2-column to 3-column. The result isn’t
perfect, but it’s a lot closer than Layout
Adjustment could get me.
Liquid Layout can move and/or resize
objects for you any time you change the
I N D E S I G N M A G A Z I N E 47 April | May 2012 19
InDepth: Liquid Layout
page size or orientation—and not just for
digital output formats. It’s highly useful
when working with multiple print formats,
too. For example, let’s say you’re laying out
a non-fiction book, and that you’ll be pro-
ducing both hardcover and trade paper-
back versions of it. For most designers that
usually means two completely different
layouts, built independently of one another,
with text poured in from Word docs and
figures, sidebars, etc. manually positioned
separately for each version. For more-
savvy layout artists who use anchored
objects and such, the workflow is usually
to create a copy of the hardcover layout,
enable Layout Adjustment, and resize the
pages. Layout Adjustment will do much of
the heavy lifting to reflow and reposition
anchored objects, but there’s still a lot of
manual cleanup to be done. With Liquid
Layouts, the workflow is: create the hard-
cover edition with anchored objects, prep
the objects to resize when needed, create
a copy for the paperback edition, resize
the pages, and perform minimal manual
cleanup. If you need a third edition—
maybe a large-print or an on-screen or
on-tablet version—that’s just as easy
to create, because the original version
was prepped to change to any page size,
any format.
Minutes versus hours. One day versus
two weeks. hmm. Tough choice.
Let’s look at the workflow of a website
or digital magazine. Typically layout begins
with one orientation (say portrait) of pages
sized for an iPad. The document is then
duplicated, reoriented for the other viewing
mode (landscape). From there, it gets really
complicated because not only do objects
need to be repositioned for the new orienta-
tion, oftentimes the text frames need to be
adapted to the wider area, moving from one-
column to two, two-column to three, or what
have you. And once that labor is finished you
still have to create portrait and landscape
versions for the Samsung Galaxy, and other
7- and 10-inch Android tablets. On average
it works out that only approximately one
third of the total production time on a digital
magazine is spent designing the magazine;
the other two thirds, you’re simply adapting
a finished design for alternate orientations
and layouts.
With Liquid Layout you might not even
have to design the second layout, much less
everything after it. Think about that: the pro-
duction time of a digital magazine, ecatalog,
or media-rich ebook cut down by 66%.
How to use liquid layoutLike Gridify, introduced in CS5, Liquid Layout
is a set of behaviors rather than a tool, com-
mand, panel, or function of InDesign. It’s
part of the program, always there, whether
your actions expose its behavior or not.
I N D E S I G N M A G A Z I N E 47 April | May 2012 20
Figure 2: A very basic layout in InDesign CS5.5Figure 3: Disabling Layout Adjustment in the Layout Adjustment dialog
Figure 4: After enlarging the master in InDesign CS5.5 with Layout Adjustment turned off
InDepth: Liquid Layout
Let’s start with a simple step-by-step to
force Liquid Layout to expose itself (eek!).
1. In InDesign CS5 or CS5.5, open or create
a single-sided document that looks
something like the one in Figure 2 (this
one is 8.5x11 Letter-sized, though the size
dimensions aren’t really important).
Ideally, you want a document that in-
cludes a multi-column text frame and
maybe an image or two.
2. Select Layout > Layout Adjustment and
ensure that Layout Adjustment is dis-
abled by clearing the checkbox in the
dialog box (Figure 3).
3. Go to the master page controlling the
document page we just looked at, and
resize it via the Edit Page Size button at
the bottom of the Pages panel (CS5 and
later). I set mine to Tabloid. Now switch
back to the document page to observe
the change.
This action, done in CS5 or CS5.5 with
Layout Adjustment off, which it is by
default, would result in the image you see
in Figure 4, where the document page size
grows outward from its center to match its
master’s new size, but the objects on that
page remain completely unchanged—just
floating within a much larger sheet of paper.
I N D E S I G N M A G A Z I N E 47 April | May 2012 21
InDepth: Liquid Layout
4. undo your page size change with
Cmd+z/Ctrl+z.
5. This time, enable Layout Adjustment, and
then resize the master page. Your docu-
ment page should now look something
like Figure 5. Notice that the text frame
now correctly resizes to follow the mar-
gin guides. The text itself doesn’t change
size, but the frame does, and it remains in
two columns, with each column merely
enlarging to bisect the now-larger space
offered by the 11x17-inch page. The un-
anchored graphic frame, however, isn’t
handled so well by Layout Adjustment.
Okay, Let’s try it one more time, but this
time in InDesign CS6.
6. Starting with an identical document,
using a primary text frame filled with
placeholder text in two columns and the
same unanchored image. (If you hadn’t
yet noticed, CS6 replaces the notion and
behavior of a “master text frame” with
a “primary text frame,” something you
don’t manually have to override! Wahoo!)
7. After again making sure that Layout Ad-
justment is disabled (Liquid Layout is still
technically available, in the Liquid Lay-
out panel flyout menu), go to the master
page, and use the Edit Page Size button
at the bottom of the Pages panel to
resize it to Tabloid.
8. Switch back to the document page and
compare the results to what CS5/5.5
delivered. here we see the first inkling
of the Liquid Layout behaviors exposed
(Figure 6). The text frame behaves exactly
the same way as in previous versions
of InDesign, but the graphic frame
retains its relative position to that
text frame—again, that frame is not
anchored or inline.
Figure 5: After enlarging the master in InDesign CS5.5 with Layout Adjustment turned on
Figure 6: After enlarging the master in InDesign CS6 with Layout Adjustment turned off
I N D E S I G N M A G A Z I N E 47 April | May 2012 22
InDepth: Liquid Layout
At this point you might be thinking: It moved a picture but otherwise aped the behavior of CS5/5.5’s Layout Adjustment. Big whoop! Maybe you’re also compiling a list of wishful behaviors like the following: » Resize the text along with the text frame. » Add (or remove) additional columns to fill
the new space instead of widening (or narrowing) existing columns.
» Resize the image instead of just moving it. » Keep the content positioned the same
distance from one or two margins while increasing the space between the con-tent and the other margins.
» Or, in the same scenario, keep the content fixed to one or two margins and stretch or resize it in the direction of other margins.
That’s a pretty hefty wish list. You probably think it’s pie in the sky. Actually, Liquid Layout can grant all of those wishes. You just have to choose the correct rule and do a little of that prep work I keep mentioning.
The RulesLiquid Layout rules are like directives you give InDesign to govern the resizing and repo-sitioning of elements on the page in response to page-size or page-orientation changes. By default, no liquid layout rules are applied to master or document pages. But if you select a document or master page in the Pages panel, you can change it to one of several very helpful rules.
Before getting into those, however, I should advise you that Liquid Layout and Layout Adjustment are incompatible with one another. If you enable Layout Adjustment, it stops Liquid Layout behaviors from functioning.
The Controlled By Master RuleThe first Liquid Layout rule is Controlled by Master, meaning simply that document
Figure 7: In this digital and print publication designer’s humble opinion, the Liquid Layout panel is miscategorized—on the Window menu within the Interactive submenu.
Getting to know the Liquid Layout panelFact: You must be using the Page tool in order to modify a Liquid Layout rule. This is true whether you change the rule on the Control panel or in the new Liquid Layout panel (Figure 7). This behavior runs contrary to what we’ve come to expect from InDesign; this panel is, to the best of my knowl-edge, the only one whose controls you can access or alter only when one specific tool is selected.
I N D E S I G N M A G A Z I N E 47 April | May 2012 23
InDepth: Liquid Layout
pages adapt based on whatever liquid layout rule you’ve applied to their master pages. And because the default rule for master pages is None, until you change the rule on a master page, this ends up being little more than a slightly-improved Layout Adjustment.
If that’s all you need, well, there you go—Layout Adjustment improved. If you need more advanced layout adaptation, you’ll need to employ a different rule.
The Scale RuleAn easy way to understand the Scale rule is to think about what happens when you’re manually resizing a bunch of objects. You group the objects, hold Cmd+Shift/Ctrl+Shift, and click and drag one of the
group’s control corners to resize the object frames and their contents—text, images, videos, whatever. The Scale rule does that exact same thing (but without grouping the objects) and it works in response to page size changes. Let’s try it.1. Start out the same way we have been,
with a document page like we used above, or something a little more complicated, like my page layout in Figure 8.
2. Let’s say I need to create a copy of this 8.5×11-inch layout that is 11×17 inches. And in this case, we only want this one page to change. So in order to use any rule except Controlled by Master, I need to change the document page rather than its master. So, I’ll select
the Page tool (third down on the Tools panel), which sets the Control panel into Page mode (Figure 9).
Figure 8: A more complicated layout I need to adapt to multiple page sizes
Figure 9: The Control panel in Page mode (when the Page tool is selected)
I N D E S I G N M A G A Z I N E 47 April | May 2012 24
InDepth: Liquid Layout
3. The first thing I want to do on the Control
panel in this mode is change the Liquid
Page Rule dropdown to—you guessed
it—Scale. Then, to the left of that, I’ll
change the Width and height (of the
page) fields to Tabloid, which is 16x20
inches. Voilà! The page becomes what
you see in Figure 10, which includes all
frames and their contents resized in pro-
portion, just as if you’d grouped them
and resized that group manually.
The extra whitespace on the sides of
my design is caused by the fact that the
Scale rule scales the entire page contents
in proportion until it reaches the edges of
the page, either the horizontal or vertical
trim edges. The content is then centered on
the other plane, leaving space as needed.
When the space is at the top and bottom,
it’s called letter-boxing; space on the sides
is called pillar-boxing. If your old page size
and your new page size are not the
same ratio, you’ll wind up with one
or the other form of boxing, requiring
you to either change the page dimen-
sions or, more likely, adjust the con-
tent manually to fit.
Scale, by the way, is the only Liquid
Layout rule that actually changes the
size of type, and images, at least with-
out using the AutoFit fitting option,
which I’ll discuss later. All the other
rules merely change the dimensions
of frames, not their contents.
The Re-Center Rule
The Re-center Liquid Layout rule
doesn’t resize anything. Rather, it merely
keeps the content perfectly centered both
horizontally and vertically to the page
edges. You don’t really need a full walk-
through just for that, but this conveniently
also gives me the opportunity to make sure
you know about the new look and functions
of a page and the Page tool when manually
resizing a page.
1. Select the Page tool.
2. On either the Control panel or the Liquid
Layout panel, set the rule to Re-center.
3. As you may have already noticed, with
Figure 10: The result of resizing the page to 16x20 inches
I N D E S I G N M A G A Z I N E 47 April | May 2012 25
InDepth: Liquid Layout
the Page tool active, CS6 displays a
bounding box with a unique set of con-
trol corners on the page itself (Figure 11).
Now, instead of merely being able to
select the page and change the size
view in the Control panel as was offered
by CS5/5.5, you can manually resize the
page just like any frame—or like chang-
ing the size of an artboard in Illustrator—
merely by dragging a control corner. Go
ahead, drag one of those control corners.
You’ll see the page resize and the content
stay centered.
Then, when you let go of the mouse
button, the page returns to the way it was!
You didn’t do anything wrong; your copy
of InDesign CS6 is functioning as it was
designed. Adobe (in a decision I am con-
vinced was solely to confound and befud-
dle creatives’ already deadline-addled and
too-many-multi-tasking minds) made it so
that dragging a page’s control corner with
the Page tool merely previews the change
rather than committing it. If you really want
to change the page size, you must first hold
Option/Alt and then begin dragging the
page’s control corner.
The logic, says Adobe, is that Liquid
Layout is predicted to be used most often
for output to formats that inherently sup-
port liquid layouts, such as hTML,
SWF, and, in a future release, Adobe’s
Digital Publishing Suite Content
Viewer for tablets. Adobe wants you
to be able to set Liquid Layout rules
on content that the viewing device
may employ to create the change.
Therefore, they say, using the Page tool to
temporarily resize the page, thus preview-
ing what will happen to the page in a web
browser or mobile device, is something
users will do more often than actually resiz-
ing the page with the Page tool.
Something else to keep in mind when
using the Re-center rule: It only really works
for making the page bigger. For instance,
it’s ideal for web content. If a website
design can’t be made fully liquid, i.e. adapt-
ing to fill all dimensions of the browser
window, most web designers will create a
fixed- or max-width layout of 960px, or the
largest their content can support before
the layout breaks down. The entire page
content will then center in the browser
window, pillar-boxed, with empty space
(or a background image) to either side. If
you size a page smaller than its content,
the Re-center rule will force that content
to fall outside the page trim area, cropping Figure 11: The new page control corners
I N D E S I G N M A G A Z I N E 47 April | May 2012 26
InDepth: Liquid Layout
that content upon export. In other words:
if you’re going to resize pages down, don’t
use the Re-center rule.
The Guide-Based Rule
here’s where we start getting to the real
potential of Liquid Layout’s behaviors. Thus
far, using the Scale and Re-center rules, we’ve
scaled the content and moved it around, but
have always been keeping the same relation
between the component objects. The objects
themselves really haven’t adapted to page
sizes and orientations—they haven’t been
liquid, if you will. Guide-based and Object-
based rules control how Liquid Layout trans-
forms individual objects to make truly adap-
tive layout changes.
There really isn’t any correlation between
the Guide-based rule and other behaviors
in InDesign. Although Adobe’s idea started
out drawing inspiration from 3- and 9-slice
scaling in Illustrator, Fireworks, and Flash,
the implementation has evolved com-
pletely away from that initial concept. It’s a
totally new way of doing things.
The idea is that by placing a guide—a
new, special kind of guide called a liquid
guide—so that it touches one or more
objects on the page, those objects will
then expand or contract, grow or shrink, in
different ways to adapt to changing page
dimensions. If it sounds confusingly sim-
ple, that’s because it is simple, and it will
confuse you. Give it a try.
1. Beginning with a mixed-content layout
like the one shown in Figure 12, drag a
vertical ruler guide and drop it so that
it touches one or more, but not all, of the
objects on the page.
2. Now, with the black-arrow Selection tool
active, hover your cursor near the top of
the guide you just created. A short dis-
tance from the top of the guide, you’ll
see an icon (Figure 13), signifying that Figure 13: Guide icons indicating a normal ruler guide (left) and a liquid guide (right)
Figure 12: A vertical ruler guide added to a mixed-content layout
I N D E S I G N M A G A Z I N E 47 April | May 2012 27
InDepth: Liquid Layout
the guide is a ruler guide. (You could
actually hover your Selection tool cursor
anywhere over the guide and the icon
will appear at the top, but it’s easier for
the next step if you start out there.) While
the guide is still selected, click on that
icon; the entire guide will transform from
solid to dashed, and the icon will change
as well. You’ve now converted your ruler
guide into a liquid guide.
3. Switch to the Page tool and set the Liq-
uid Layout rule to Guide-based.
4. Widen the page—either with the Page
tool, the page size Width field on the
Control panel, or the Page Sizes button
at the bottom of the Pages panel. See
Figure 14 to view the results when I wid-
ened my page almost 100% again. Did
you notice that the objects touched by
the liquid guide resized while the objects
it didn’t touch remained fixed in size and
location to the other side of the layout?
5. undo your resize.
6. Now, while keeping the Page tool active,
drag a horizontal guide out of the ruler
and place it somewhere on the page
overlapping some but not all objects.
Note that when you create a guide with
the Page tool active, it automatically be-
comes a liquid guide; doing so with any
other tool active creates our old friend
the standard ruler guide.
7. Resize the page width and height. For my
design, I converted from an 8.5x11-inch
Figure 14: After resizing the width of the page with the Guide-based rule active
I N D E S I G N M A G A Z I N E 47 April | May 2012 28
InDepth: Liquid Layout
page to a 20x16-inch, which gave me
the results in Figure 15. As you can see,
objects touched by the liquid guide can
adapt in both dimensions while other
objects remain unchanged.
One thing that bugs me about the results
I received is the two-column text frame.
Widening the page like I did made those
columns too wide for my taste. Of course
it’s a simple matter to select the frame and
alter the number of columns via the Control
panel, but I shouldn’t have to manually
make that change. Doing so manually isn’t
very…liquid. Let’s try this one more time.
1. undo your previous resize changes.
2. Select your primary text frame, whether
it has one, two, three, or 4 columns, and
go to Object > Text Frame Options.
In the Columns drop-down menu, you’ll
see that CS6 has added a third option
(Figure 16).
3. Select the new choice, Flexible Width,
and in the new Maximum field under-
neath the Columns menu, specify the
maximum width of a single column
you’re willing to live with. Given the
fact that my document started out as
a two-column layout within half-inch
margins on an 8.5-inch-wide page,
I’m going to set my maximum column
width to 3.5 in, which, considering the
presence of the gutter, is a little bigger
than what fits on the original version
page. When you’re satisfied with your
options, click OK.
Figure 15: After enabling stretching in two dimensions on some objects
Figure 16: Text Frame Options now includes a third Columns choice: Flexible Width.
I N D E S I G N M A G A Z I N E 47 April | May 2012 29
InDepth: Liquid Layout
4. Make sure that there’s a vertical liquid
guide touching that text frame whose
settings you just modified, and then
widen your page—go big, nice and
wide. heck, like zz Top sang, go nation-
wide! Because of setting a maximum
column-width measurement, you
should now see your text frame pick up
additional columns when its adaptation
to the new page width would otherwise
force a column to exceed that maximum
width (Figure 17). Think about that for a
moment: With that one little alteration
you can make text frames go from one-
or two-column presentation in portrait
mode digital magazine layouts to two-
or three-column presentation in land-
scape mode—automatically.
Although it may seem a little weird in
practice, using guides for this purpose really
works out. I liken it to using frying pans
as blunt weapons—an obvious choice in
hindsight. To paraphrase Flint from Tangled:
“Guides! Who knew?”
Object-Based Rule
Finally, we have the most confusing, coun-
terintuitive, un-InDesign-like, but most
controllable of the Liquid Layout rules, the
Object-based rule. This rule lets you define a
different adaptive behavior for each object
on your page.
1. Start with a simple layout in which there
is only a placed graphic floating dead
center on the page (Figure 18).
2. Select the Page tool and click on the
graphic frame (I know—the Page tool is
for resizing pages, not objects, but that’s
the way Adobe went with this). Now
choose Object-based from the Liquid
Page Rule popup menu in the Control
panel. You’ll now see a bunch of new
symbols perched on lines emanating
Figure 17: The number of columns adapts to meet flexible width settings.
Figure 18: A simple, clean page will help make sense of the not-so-simple constructions that will show up momentarily.
I N D E S I G N M A G A Z I N E 47 April | May 2012 30
InDepth: Liquid Layout
from the graphic frame. Soon, those odd
lines and symbols will multiply.
3. Open the Liquid Layout panel and set
your options to match the ones shown
in Figure 19. Now there are a few more
lines and symbols both within and out-
side of the graphic frame. Follow along
in Figure 20 and I’ll explain what those
symbols mean.
Let’s start outside the object and work
our way in.
On the top and left, lines emanate from
the frame and connect to solid circles on
the page’s top and left edges, respectively.
These solid lines, with filled circle termi-
nuses, indicate that the object is pinned
to the top and left, meaning that when
the page resizes, the frame will always
be the same distance from the top and
left; only the distances to the bottom and
right sides of the page will change, which
is indicated by the open circles on those
sides of the frame.
Moving along to the inside of the frame,
dashed lines delineate the horizontal and
vertical dimensions of the frame. On the
horizontal line is a padlock icon, while the
vertical displays a spring. These two sym-
bols, respectively, communicate that the
width of the frame will not change in
response to the page size (“lock”), while the
height will “spring.”
In other words, the frame will always be
however wide it is, no matter how wide
the page gets, but it will grow or shrink in
depth along with the page height changes.
The filled circles communicate the same
thing—notice they’re on the line with the
padlock—as do the open circles for the
liquid or springy dimension.
Figure 19: My options on the Liquid Layout panel
Figure 20: With the Object-based rule active and the object selected with the Page tool
I N D E S I G N M A G A Z I N E 47 April | May 2012 31
InDepth: Liquid Layout
Finally—and this isn’t a symbol on the
frame—the Auto-Fit option on the Liquid
Layout panel means (if selected) that the
image inside the frame will also resize along
with its frame, keeping whatever fitting
method was chosen—Fit Content to Frame,
Fill Frame Proportionately, Center Content,
and so on. (This is the same Auto-Fit feature
that was in CS5, but now it shows up in this
panel, too.)
4. Assuming you have the same options set
that I do, if you resize the page you’ll see
the frame lengthen but not widen, and
you’ll see that it remains the exact same
distance from the top and left margins.
Now, imagine setting these object-
specific movement and sizing options on
all the objects within a complex layout des-
tined for multiple outputs—a big poster,
a small flyer, and a blowcard, or a digital
magazine bound for the iPad, the XOOM,
the Transformer, the Fire, the Galaxy Tab,
the Playbook, and so on, in portrait and
landscape versions for each device. Imagine
the amount of time and energy involved
in reworking the layout. If you become
familiar with the Liquid Layout options and
prep each object carefully, setting auto-fit
options on the images and flexible width
options on text frames, you could almost
entirely automate the process of adapting
the one layout you actually have to design
to all those other devices and orientations.
A few minutes of prep time in advance
and a few minutes of minor cleanup after
wholesale layout resizing or reorienting,
and you’ve just saved yourself hours,
days, maybe even weeks of tedious hand-
ministration of the objects.
This is the power of Liquid Layouts.
An ounce of preparation really is worth a
pound of layout.
Can I get a hallelujah?
nPariah S. Burke (http://iamPariah.com) is a software trainer
and design, publishing, and digital publishing workflow
expert bringing creative efficiency into studios, agencies,
and publications around the world. he is the author of
ePublishing with InDesign CS6, Mastering InDesign for Print
Design and Production, and other books on InDesign,
Creative Suite, Adobe Illustrator, QuarkXPress, and digital
publishing; a prolific article and blog writer, an Adobe
Community Professional; a freelance graphic designer with
20 years experience; and the publisher of the Workflow:
Network (http://workflownetwork.com) a network of
websites. Pariah lives in Phoenix, Az where he writes (a lot)
and creates (many) projects and publications to Empower
and Inform Creative Professionals™.
I N D E S I G N M A G A Z I N E 47 April | May 2012 32
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